It’s always a little task each month to think of what to write for you. For me.
My daughter shared with me the other day that one of her cafe customers had bought a copy of my memoir there, and was pouring out to Marlo her enthusiasm about the story. How I would love to still be writing about the adventurous kind of life that Warren and I had. But age, life, death, changes so much about our existence. My adventures now are not so wild.
I have a very dear friend, around my age, who talked to me about hearing a song called ‘To Leave Something Behind’ by Sean Rowe. The lyrics prompted food for thought. What do we leave behind? We can’t all design an Opera House, or paint a Mona Lisa. We all leave some things behind but are they valued after we have gone? I have a box full of my mother’s writings, jottings, poems written in her time as a beach dweller on an island – in a cottage she helped build herself. They speak of a life journey. They’re part of what she left behind but who has read them? I have read some of them but not all. This is what will happen to mine. They will end up in a box somewhere. My kids will think ‘That’s Mum. It’s what she left behind.’ But most of it won’t be read. I have a tape recording of my father playing his harmonica. He died more than thirty years ago and I have listened to it once. I have tape recordings of Warren’s father being interviewed about his amazing life as a farmer and vigneron, through the thirties, forties and fifties, how he survived The Great Depression.’ He achieved so much – a true pioneer. I don’t think I have listened to them all the way through. Many of his family have never listened to them. But we know and remember the man, because of his character.
So, I think that what we best leave behind is ourselves. Everything else is perishable, but in the minds and memories and hearts of those with whom we associated, we always remain.
Sometimes I have micro flash-backs. Some smell, some moment of light, some sound, triggers them. I can’t grasp what, and I can’t hold onto the memory for more than a milli-second, but I do know that they are always blissful. I would love to be able to pluck them back out of my mind, savour them for a little longer, write them down. What a wonderful story they would make. I wonder if anyone knows how to do that. Probably not.
There are those who spend a lifetime searching, seeking unknowable answers. Why are we here, what is the purpose of life, where are we going, what comes next? Like the Leonardo da Vincis of the world. Can we accept that the answers to some of these questions will always be just out of our reach?
Here is another of my poems brought out of the archives. Written in the early eighties. If you’re reading on your iPhone, turn it sideways to get the intended format.
THE PENDULUM
Touch the earth
I must taste it
lay upon it
feel it
know its rhythm
Chameleon-clothed I enter in
Part of a borderless painting
like a blade of grass that bends with the wind
and I am spectator
I see the cosmic picture
I see an atom moving where it must
with only the bounds
that confine it to the cell
that is contained by an organism
within the Earth
within our galaxy
within this universe
with only those bounds
I am suspended
in a divine order of things
I am free of commitment
I am a blade of grass
How big am I
in the infinite spiral of being
How small
I am an ant in a crystal ball
A fish in a sea with edges
A word in an unread book
A babe in an untended cradle
NOW MAKE ME SMALL
Now make me small
Now let me hide beneath the lichen on this rock
Oh close me in
and wrap me tight in foetal comfort
in my own cocoon
No room for loves who do not call
or autumn days that draw me to the hills
No room for telephones that bait
or voices crying in my head
This space around me is so wide
so high
so deep
I see the crowds that seldom touch me now
The crowds of clouds and creeks
and robins
airplanes
clerks
and winter fires
monoliths and theatres
Fitzroy Crossings
puppets
pear trees
cars and hay-stacks
city bridges
doors and dungeons long as waiting
morning dews
Italian grocers
noses pressed against the glass
Multitudes fill up the black squares
I am microscopic in the white squares
All the white squares have dark edges
Now let me be the Red Queen
Let me see the Red King’s thoughts
that erstwhile only seers have seen
Let my mantle aptly shade this onyx stare
these bony hands
Seal the box of bats and wishes
spirits
bells
the come ye hithers
Lift this overcast with laughter
Give the Red King back his voice
Give the queen some sky-blue eyes
a Santa’s sack to fill the spaces
A coat of mail
A later booking
A dictum sealed with mutual vision
No promises?
Then whittle me down and bury the shavings
Melt me into shapeless form
Pluck my petals
Harvest my green fruit
Scoop out my flesh
and fill all my pages
Shroud me in chrysalis blindness and then
make me small
make me small
make me small
A little weird this time. Feeling in a suspended state. Waiting for things to change, but must talk myself out of that. A life can be wasted like that. Make things change or accept that you can’t and create something new.
I have had two delightful little holidays recently. I want to tell you about them but they would be out of place in this blog, so next time, when I’ll be back on solid ground – sharing some of the delights of our beautiful country.
For those of you who write, keep writing. I am one of the many who love to read what you write.
Warmly,
Sue
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